Writing Wednesday: Splitting and Drawing

This week has been pretty slow. I had this plan to write a very ambitious paper that would weave together various Roman period features and finds from the area E.F2 at Polis. As the article took shape — complete with catalogues, stratigraphic descriptions, and comparanda for the various features — it crept toward 25,000 words. Having just completed a “minigraph” that was supposed to be around 30,000 words (and somehow became longer), I knew where this was heading and we decided cut the growing article in half.

One part of the article would focus on the features (levigation pool, kiln, and some of the later walls), stratigraphy, and a small number of finds. The other would be a proper article focused on the Roman pottery from Polis. This gave us the freedom to delve a bit more deeply into our Roman pottery assemblage which we hope will be to the benefit both to folks thinking about how imported (especially Eastern Sigillata A) and regional (especially Cypriot Sigillata and regional cooking wares) pottery circulated on Cyprus and to folks interested in understanding the variation in common forms on the island. 

The result of this is that we’re back in the storeroom going back through dozens of contexts to refine our reading of Roman period wares (which often residual in latter fill levels in the area). Hopefully, by the end of this week, we’ll have some teasers on this work.

Meanwhile, I’m reworking the article on the features and lamps. Fortunately, the latter is not a particularly heavy lift and that’s given me the chance to work on preparing photographs and illustrations necessary to make our arguments in the afternoon.

Below is a draft showing the relationship between the tile lined levigation pool and the beehive shaped kiln below it from the south. The heavy black line on the left side of the drawing the flaring foundation wall of the basilica apse. The hand drawn wall is a later wall that runs to the north of the levigation pool and kiln and at a higher elevation, but still earlier than the church.

This drawing is far from being done and publication worthy, but it gives you an idea of where we’re headed!